Restaurants to try: Antwerpen

As usual, we turned to the NYTimes travel section when looking for travel tips and advice before our Antwerpen trip.I did not make it to all the restos they recommend so I quickly quote them here, as I want to remember to go there next time

This is from the article A Fashion-Forward guide to Antwerp: 

"Graanmarkt 13’s restaurant is overseen by the young, talented chef Seppe Nobels, who trained at Michelin star establishments (Graanmarkt 13; 23-3-337-7991;www.graanmarkt13.be). By day it serves country club food like caviar and club sandwiches; at night Mr. Nobels offers modern versions of European classics like beef carpaccio with foie gras and pork cheeks cooked sous-vide with spring vegetables.

Antwerp’s local fashion crowd and academy students tend to hang out and drink coffee at either Biologisch Dynamische Bakkerij (Volkstraat 17; 32-3-216-0042), a cozy organic bakery and cafe, or the Cafe ‘In de Roscam’ (Vrijdagmarkt 12; 32-486-425-606), which hosts a festive Sunday brunch.

Almost a year before the anticipated May opening of the Museum aan de Stroom, the museum’s ground-floor Storm cafe (Hanzestedenplaats 5; 32-3-231-4300; cafe-storm.com) started drawing crowds of locals curious to check on the building’s progress. And they keep returning — for the harbor views, tasty sandwiches and, on occasional Saturday nights, live music."

I must say, I was pleasantly surprised when now I saw from 'restaurants we recommend' in the NY Travel section Chez Fred being one of the 8 top restaurants and having a New York Times pick. Go Fred!  

Antwerpen - YOUR

As I am in the shopping mindset, here is another one for you. YOUR in Antwerpen.

I must say that the selection in this concept store is lovely and ranges from books to small decorative items to jewelry to clothes and shoes and electronics and watches + they have a beauty salon inside the store.

BUT better than that is the Service! The Service, with a capital S is absolutely phenomenal in this store. The assistants are extremely helpful without being pushy and they are honest (or appear to be) in their opinions and they assist. Tremendously.

So we went in just to take a look...and we bought and bought and bought...and we are still happy with our purchases.

They call their store as: YOUR premium store for damn fine products.

I agree.

Better yet, it is open on Sundays...

and ladies, don't miss out on the YOUR shoe store across the street where you can get shoes in over 100 colours - choose from a few classic designs and put together your rainbow!

www.your-antwerp.com

Amsterdam: de Weldaad

I know that in a year I need furniture and decorative elements. Last time in Amsterdam, just next to the lovely Apple Pie place, I found the store: de Weldaad. Yep, and I fell in love again. There was a myriad of curiosities, decorative items and furniture with real antique mixed with not-so real antique (or so is my guess). My kind of place - a place where I can wonder and get lost and a place from where I want to buy just about everything! A great place to browse and get inspiration, and hopefully, in the future, to shop!

Check out their online presence: www.weldaad.com

Winkel: THE Apple pie

Yes yes yes! That's what I am talking about!

And now, from another angle:

Apple pie is the thing in Amsterdam. I did not know. I found out on my third visit...and now i am contemplating going back...for that apple pie.

In case you have not tried it yet, get up, and go to Winkel (Noordermarkt 43) in the Jordaan area, quickly becoming my favourite area in Amsterdam. The apple pie is lush and comes with an enormous scoop of whipped cream.

As you are next to the Noodremarkt, I recommend to check that out too! Photos to follow later....

Antwerpen: Chez Fred

So I discovered a new city - Antwerpen. I had been reading about it for a while and people keep telling me to go there. So we went. A mere 2.5h drive from Luxembourg, it is a perfect weekend getaway destination.

We stayed in a wonderful hotel (more about that in another post) and they recommended great places to eat. For Sunday lunch/ brunch we ended up going to Chez Fred. It felt a little bit ironic, driving to Amsterdam, to go to a French restaurant, but it looked wonderful and had nice french old music as the background, and we stayed.

Oh, were we glad we stayed!  We saw two women by the window having the most delicious looking breakfast. That's exactly what we wanted after a night out! So I asked,"what are they having".Our waiter guy answered: "breakfast". It could have been snobby but, no, he was just honest, and it was what he said... breakfast. We have not found many places in Luxembourg where to get breakfast on a Sunday at 12 so we wanted that, breakfast.

And this is what it was.

We started off with fresh orange juice.

Then we got the breakfast platter + an egg (not seen in the photo)

A glass of cherry beer:

After which they brought a basket of croissants and jam. They were sooo fresh and warm that I completely forgot about taking a photo. And then, of course, coffee:

For the admirers of women in lingerie, this place is a special treat as there were huge photo prints by Marc Lagrange. If you do not know him, google him! I'd like to say that a style close to Helmut Newton....

A place to remember, and to return!

Chez Fred
Kloosterstraat 83
Antwerpen

Shop: Restored

The estonian speakers who read my other blog will not be surprised when I say: I love Amsterdam! I do indeed! It is because of Amsterdam that I am writing a business plan and looking hopefully into the future, albeit moving slowly, but still hopefully.

In Amsterdam there are also some of my favorite new shops, one of them being RESTORED. They have a nice online presence too at http://restored.nl/. It is a beautiful little space on Haarlemmerdijk and you can get completely lost in just a few sqm. For me it has been a great find and a place I return to every time I am in Amsterdam.

They have a wonderful selection of 'things they like' from clothes to interior design to books and magazines and it is there that I discovered one of my new favorite magazines: Anthology (http://anthologymag.com/blog3/issues/). I just wish they would sell this also in a place that would be more accessible to me. You lucky people of US and UK. I am jealous! I cannot be travelling to Amsterdam just to buy the next issue...can I?

Skiing dinner - la Ferme

I am trying to make it a habit to write about places that I like quickly after I visit them. Hence another post about our recent ski holiday.

We chose to live in an apartment as it is most comfortable with a small baby who has severe food allergies. Full access to fully equipped kitchen was what we wanted and had. Therefore we also opted to prepare most of our dinners ourselves. The last night, however, our friends invited us out to dine in a restaurant - la Ferme (Centre Commercial, Plagne Bellecote, tel: +33 (0)4 79 09 29 32)

It is a recommendation with reservations...

The place looked lovely. Very authentic old French ski restort type. And here comes the caveat...it was underground in a shopping mall...so really, it was not authentic at all. And I could not see any windows that looked outside but I think they were all fake windows/mirrors. Nonetheless, it was cosy and with good company you quickly forgot that you were indeed in a shopping mall.

We were a group of 10 people so we ordered different things and got quite a good overview of the menu. None of us were disappointed with the food. Quite the opposite. We were close to licking our plates in the end and the foor was plentiful to start with.

Our group had: mushroom risotto (for the vegetarian among us), salad, shared cheese fondue with cold cuts, raclette and ...hmmm... cannot remember more.

Me and P had the raclette and it was delicious. A raclette is a dish that consist of melting a big round chunk of cheese with a special device and then scraping it off and eating with boiled potatoes and salad and cold cuts. The name comes from the french verb racler which means, to scrape.

As the cheese melts you take a knife and scrape the melted cheese off and eat and wait for more cheese to melt. In addition to being very good this dish is a great crowd pleaser as it is cool. A specialty in Switzerland and Savoy region of France, I recommend trying this if you are in the area.

Back to la Ferme and here is a photo of the table. You can see the fondue pot, cold cuts, salads and overall feel of the place. No white tablecloths...

The waiters were again surprisingly accommodating with all our requests and wishes and we were pleased.

We finished off the dinner with a round of génépi.

And we were very happy customers:

Another thing that was unique to the Plagne area was that they considered that people might wish to go to another village int he evenings and the lift was kept running between Belle Plagne and Plagne Bellecote until 00.45 at night. This is why we had the chance to go to Plagne Bellecote at all...

Good thinking!